Leonaro da Vinci's Robot model. Courtesy of the Robot Museum.

Leonaro da Vinci’s Robot model. Courtesy of the Robot Museum.

Science and Tech:

“We could store all the data currently on the internet in the size of a shoebox,” says a scientist in this BBC World News segment about using DNA for data storage. Is that the best SF What-If ever?

“1984; it’s a great book, but it’s not the right dystopia for the 21st century.” In light of the revelations about Cambridge Analytica and Facebook, this TED talk becomes very interesting. It’s just under 25 minutes long.

Books and Writing:

Nisi Shawl and K. Tempest Bradford offer a seminar on Writing the Other. If you haven’t read their book of the same title, or even if you have, this looks thoughtful and worthwhile for writers and engaged readers alike.

Serial Box is offering a 50% discount on omnibus editions of REMADE, BOOKBURNERS and TREMONTAINE from March 29 through April 5. This is quite the deal. If any of those interest you (I know Bookburners interests me) go check it out!

Penguin Random House has “gameized” the prologue of Ernest Cline’s Ready Player One in a charming retro style as one way to introduce the book to film fans who might not have read it yet. This is really fun.

Here is a delightful morsel, courtesy of The Guardian’s ongoing feature, Browse a Bookshop.

Danger, Will Robinson! The Robot from Lost in Space. Courtesy of CBS.

Danger, Will Robinson! The Robot from Lost in Space. Courtesy of CBS.

Movies and TV:

Syfy premiered its new pre-superhero space fantasy show Krypton (which the showrunners were quick to tell us is “not a prequel to the Superman story,”) and Shaun Sipos plays a human from earth named Adam Strange, who travels in time to Krypton two hundred years before Kal-El is born. Here the actor talks about his comic book role and things he hopes to see. (Are Stephen Strange, in the Marvel universe, and Adam Strange, in the DC-verse, related? Maybe they should get their DNA done.)

Hollywood Reporter analyzes the new, NSFW (language) Deadpool 2 trailer and predicts what the film might mean for the X-Men and X-Force franchises.

File 770 has a nice compilation of info about some favorite old shows and movies, curated by Carl Slaughter. By the way, when it’s early and the morning and the coffee hasn’t kicked in yet and you mis-type File770 leaving off the zero, you go to an Asian porn site. Just a PSA.

Locus reviews Pacific Rim, Uprising. The take-away seems to be that if you somehow got to the cinema late and missed the first hour, you would really enjoy the film. I’d say this review creates spoilers, but reviewer Gary Westphal is clear that the characters and plot are so familiar and overdone that these cannot be considered spoilers. So, um, enjoy the review, I guess. And then if you like giant robots fighting giant kaiju, enjoy the movie.

Conventions:

WorldCon has released its second report for the upcoming WorldCon 76, to be held in San Jose, California, USA. (h/t to Locus Magazine.)

Internet:

Juliette Wade has a Dive Into Worldbuilding webcast, tied to her blog on Blogspot. She picks interesting topics for in-depth world building; food production and delivery is one. Posture among the various people in your world was one! I was a guest yesterday. Here is  our free-ranging discussion, which lasts about an hour, and you can visit other ‘casts from the show on Youtube.

 

Robby he Robot, from 1956, The Forbidden Planet. Image courtesy of Wikipedia.

Robby the Robot, from 1956, The Forbidden Planet. Image courtesy of Wikipedia.

Cook County, Illinois, joins in the lawsuits filed against Facebook in light of recent revelations about Facebook and Cambridge Analytics. Cook County is the first public entity to file suit. Also this week; Facebook harvested call information from any Android user who uses FB on their phones before they notified us they were doing that.

Games:

Ars Technica reviews the board game Spirit Island, in which the players, as elemental spirits, try to fend off human invaders who seek to colonize your lands.

Earth:

What would this column do without Atlas Obscura? Enjoy this link to photography of the secluded and beautiful Westfjords in Iceland.

Art:

As you noticed, the artwork has nothing to do with any of the articles I connected to. I just thought historical robots would be fun.

 

 

 

Author

  • Marion Deeds

    Marion Deeds, with us since March, 2011, is the author of the fantasy novella ALUMINUM LEAVES. Her short fiction has appeared in the anthologies BEYOND THE STARS, THE WAND THAT ROCKS THE CRADLE, STRANGE CALIFORNIA, and in Podcastle, The Noyo River Review, Daily Science Fiction and Flash Fiction Online. She’s retired from 35 years in county government, and spends some of her free time volunteering at a second-hand bookstore in her home town.

    View all posts